Post hole diggers known in the art are generally configured with two elongated handles connected to two blade members through a pivoting joint. To operate a traditional post hole digger, a user holds one elongated handle in each hand and thrusts the post hole digger into the ground to loosen the soil and then uses the two elongated handles to close the two blade members thereby capturing and holding the soil. The user next removes the post hole digger containing the captured soil out from the hole and opens the handles allowing the soil to fall outside and away from the hole.
There have been many improvements and adaptations to post hole diggers over the years. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 7,798,545 discloses a post hole digger comprising two uniquely shaped elongated handles connected to a blade assembly. The uniquely shaped handles act to reduce the size of the post hole digger in both its open and closed positions and thereby allowing a user to dig more narrow and steep sided holes.
Despite the many improvements to post hole diggers over the past century, most post hole diggers on the market today utilize a two handle design and offer many disadvantages to the end user. First, using two handles forces a user to spread their arms at an uncomfortable distance when thrusting the digger into the ground and when removing soil. This puts a user's arms, back, and neck into an unnatural position causing fatigue and stress to the body. The two handle design also makes it difficult for more than one person to operate the digger. Second, traditional post hole diggers require a great deal of effort by the user to maintain the blades in a closed position while removing heavy loads of soil. Third, the depth of a hole is limited by the design of traditional two handle post hole diggers which require the two handles to be spread apart by a certain degree in order to open or close the blade members.
There is therefore a great need in the field for a new type of post hole digger which is comfortable to use, may be used simultaneously by more than one person, provides a means to lock the blades into position when removing heavy loads of soil, and which is able to dig a deep hole without being limited by the configuration of the post hole digger handles.